This was an okay enough book, sympathetic protagonist and good world-building and a dash of mystery and intrigue, but the protag is the most boring character in the whole story. We get teased with little descriptions of these other side characters.

• the guard who swear their life to protect the emperor and can throw lightning• the daughter who disguised herself as a boy to become a sailor, and is now a captain with a wife

• the engineers working to build the biggest drawbridge in the world• the detective who can speak to the dead• the revolutionaries struggling to save their fellows from being worked to death in the factories

by contrast, the titular Goblin Emperor is only thus because of heredity and chance, his only distinctive trait is compassion, and he's mostly confined to one wing of the palace.

oh, and I almost forgot, the lady who is of high enough status to be marriageable to an emperor, but who writes letters like

> WE REGRET EXTREMELY THAT WE CANNOT CHALLENGE HER TO A DUEL ＆ PROVE HER WORTHLESSNESS UPON HER CARCASE, BUT WE ARE TOLD DUELING IS BARBARIC ＆ UNBEFITTING A LADY ＆ IN ANY EVENT [SHE] WOULD NOT KNOW HOW.